By Ratna Manucha
I know what you’re thinking. In this day and age when even toddlers press buttons on phones, tabs and laptops with alacrity, how bad can it be, really?
You want to know how bad? Where technology is concerned, I am technologically challenged, a technophobe actually or even a Luddite.
The last one I think fits the bill for me. Apart from the fear of and resistance to technology, I am totally opposed to it in any form. So that makes me a Luddite and a strong one at that. I dig in my heels when faced with someone who is trying to explain new forms of technology or trying to explain to me how to download a new app.
No new apps. On that I am crystal clear. So, when new ride booking services like Ola, Uber and the more recent Rapido were introduced, I but naturally dug in my heels. I can do without such apps thank you.
Just the other day, a like-minded friend – maybe a shade better – dropped in for a visit. She had hitched a ride from another friend who was passing by my house. We gossiped harmlessly, discussed the goings-on in our beloved city, ate, drank and gossiped some more. The day was bright and sunny and we were all aglow with the warmth of true friendship, the kind of glow that washes over one when one meets a long-lost friend. The birds were chirping in the garden, butterflies were flitting about, bees were buzzing and the flowers were looking heavenly…a perfect feel good day.
Till my friend decided to head back home.
‘How do you plan to go back?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I’ll book an Uber,’ she replied airily.
That seemed fine by me. Secretly impressed, I zipped my lips. There was no way I was going to tell her about my incapabilities.
Half an hour later we were still chatting as all girls are wont to do…(yes, we still classify as girls, just a wee bit older), when I noticed her jabbing at her phone impatiently.
Trying to sound helpful, I asked what she was up to.
‘I’m trying to book an Uber but somehow it keeps showing my home as the pickup point and not yours.’
In her effort to sort out this confusion, she had apparently booked four times and soon she started getting calls from the drivers who were all circling her house like hungry hawks.
‘Madam, where are you?’
‘I’m at Haridwar Road’.
‘But I’m outside your house in Purkul.’ These were the drivers – all four of them, turn by turn.
‘Cancel your ride and book again,’ they kept telling her persistently.
‘How do I do that?’ By now her forehead was glistening with tiny beads of sweat.
All this while I sat with my fingers crossed under the table, praying fervently to all the gods on my list that she doesn’t ask for my help.
She does just that.
‘My phone is acting up. Let’s try from your phone’.
‘I don’t have the app.’ I looked sheepish.
She looked at me incredulously. Her look spoke volumes. Condescending. Patronising. Supercilious.
She handed me her phone, disgust writ large on her face.
‘Here. You try booking it. Maybe it’ll work.’
Booking what? Couldn’t she guess I was butter fingers when faced with apps and their ilk?
‘Let me call up my neighbour,’ I suggested helpfully. ‘She’s a pro when it comes to booking rides’.
Just so we both are on the same page, I put my neighbour on speaker.
‘There’s a destination and a pick-up point…’ she explains patiently.
In between all this mayhem, my friend gets a call from her husband.
‘You were supposed to be home an hour ago.’
‘Yes, yes, just trying to book a ride.’
Good man that he is, he says, ‘Stay right there. I’m coming to get you.’
Bless his dear heart.
(Ratna Manucha is an academician, storyteller, poet, columnist and author of fact and fiction. She lives, dreams and writes in Dehradun, her happy place.)
